London's weather and the everyday: two centuries of newspaper reports

This study surveys 200 years of London’s weather and its public reporting in newspapers to reveal some of the recurring modes of reporting and linguistic styles that are used to describe and make sense of the human experience of weather. These modes include: the cultural anxieties prompted by ‘unusual weather’; the visual dramas of ‘great storms’; the weather as culpable; and bench-marking extreme weather. Even as the broader processes and patterns of our climate are changing, at the level of the everyday the human and cultural experience of weather remains remarkably familiar

Principles of Stakes Fairness in Sport

Fairness in sport is not just about assigning the top prizes to the worthiest competitors. It is also about the way the prize structure itself is organised. For many sporting competitions, although it may be acceptable for winners to receive more than losers, it can seem unfair for winners to take everything and for losers to get nothing. Yet this insight leaves unanswered some difficult questions about what stakes fairness requires and which principles of stakes fairness are appropriate for particular competitions. In this article I specify a range of different principles of stakes fairness (ten in total) that could regulate sporting competitions. I also put forward a theoretical method for pairing up appropriate principles of stakes fairness with given sporting competitions. Specifically, I argue that the underlying rationales for holding sporting competitions can provide useful guides for identifying appropriate principles of stakes fairness. I then seek to clarify and work through some of the implications of this method for a sample of real world controversies over sporting prize structures. I also attempt to refine the method in response to two possible objections from indeterminacy and relativism. Finally, I compare and contrast my conclusions with more general philosophical debates about justice

Vitamin D supplementation and breast cancer prevention : a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials

In recent years, the scientific evidence linking vitamin D status or supplementation to breast cancer has grown notably. To investigate the role of vitamin D supplementation on breast cancer incidence, we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials comparing vitamin D with placebo or no treatment. We used OVID to search MEDLINE (R), EMBASE and CENTRAL until April 2012. We screened the reference lists of included studies and used the “Related Article” feature in PubMed to identify additional articles. No language restrictions were applied. Two reviewers independently extracted data on methodological quality, participants, intervention, comparison and outcomes. Risk Ratios and 95% Confident Intervals for breast cancer were pooled using a random-effects model. Heterogeneity was assessed using the I2 test. In sensitivity analysis, we assessed the impact of vitamin D dosage and mode of administration on treatment effects. Only two randomized controlled trials fulfilled the pre-set inclusion criteria. The pooled analysis included 5372 postmenopausal women. Overall, Risk Ratios and 95% Confident Intervals were 1.11 and 0.74–1.68. We found no evidence of heterogeneity. Neither vitamin D dosage nor mode of administration significantly affected breast cancer risk. However, treatment efficacy was somewhat greater when vitamin D was administered at the highest dosage and in combination with calcium (Risk Ratio 0.58, 95% Confident Interval 0.23–1.47 and Risk Ratio 0.93, 95% Confident Interval 0.54–1.60, respectively). In conclusions, vitamin D use seems not to be associated with a reduced risk of breast cancer development in postmenopausal women. However, the available evidence is still limited and inadequate to draw firm conclusions. Study protocol code: FARM8L2B5L

Engaging Undergraduates in Science Research: Not Just About Faculty Willingness.

Despite the many benefits of involving undergraduates in research and the growing number of undergraduate research programs, few scholars have investigated the factors that affect faculty members' decisions to involve undergraduates in their research projects. We investigated the individual factors and institutional contexts that predict faculty members' likelihood of engaging undergraduates in their research project(s). Using data from the Higher Education Research Institute's 2007-2008 Faculty Survey, we employ hierarchical generalized linear modeling to analyze data from 4,832 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) faculty across 194 institutions to examine how organizational citizenship behavior theory and social exchange theory relate to mentoring students in research. Key findings show that faculty who work in the life sciences and those who receive government funding for their research are more likely to involve undergraduates in their research project(s). In addition, faculty at liberal arts or historically Black colleges are significantly more likely to involve undergraduate students in research. Implications for advancing undergraduate research opportunities are discussed

Effect of parasympathetic stimulation on brain activity during appraisal of fearful expressions

Autonomic nervous system activity is an important component of human emotion. Mental processes influence bodily physiology, which in turn feeds back to influence thoughts and feelings. Afferent cardiovascular signals from arterial baroreceptors in the carotid sinuses are processed within the brain and contribute to this two-way communication with the body. These carotid baroreceptors can be stimulated non-invasively by externally applying focal negative pressure bilaterally to the neck. In an experiment combining functional neuroimaging (fMRI) with carotid stimulation in healthy participants, we tested the hypothesis that manipulating afferent cardiovascular signals alters the central processing of emotional information (fearful and neutral facial expressions). Carotid stimulation, compared with sham stimulation, broadly attenuated activity across cortical and brainstem regions. Modulation of emotional processing was apparent as a significant expression-by-stimulation interaction within left amygdala, where responses during appraisal of fearful faces were selectively reduced by carotid stimulation. Moreover, activity reductions within insula, amygdala, and hippocampus correlated with the degree of stimulation-evoked change in the explicit emotional ratings of fearful faces. Across participants, individual differences in autonomic state (heart rate variability, a proxy measure of autonomic balance toward parasympathetic activity) predicted the extent to which carotid stimulation influenced neural (amygdala) responses during appraisal and subjective rating of fearful faces. Together our results provide mechanistic insight into the visceral component of emotion by identifying the neural substrates mediating cardiovascular influences on the processing of fear signals, potentially implicating central baroreflex mechanisms for anxiolytic treatment targets

International Veterinary Epilepsy Task Force consensus proposal: Medical treatment of canine epilepsy in Europe

In Europe, the number of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) licensed for dogs has grown considerably over the last years. Nevertheless, the same questions remain, which include, 1) when to start treatment, 2) which drug is best used initially, 3) which adjunctive AED can be advised if treatment with the initial drug is unsatisfactory, and 4) when treatment changes should be considered. In this consensus proposal, an overview is given on the aim of AED treatment, when to start long-term treatment in canine epilepsy and which veterinary AEDs are currently in use for dogs. The consensus proposal for drug treatment protocols, 1) is based on current published evidence-based literature, 2) considers the current legal framework of the cascade regulation for the prescription of veterinary drugs in Europe, and 3) reflects the authors’ experience. With this paper it is aimed to provide a consensus for the management of canine idiopathic epilepsy. Furthermore, for the management of structural epilepsy AEDs are inevitable in addition to treating the underlying cause, if possible

ZEB1 Links p63 and p73 in a Novel Neuronal Survival Pathway Rapidly Induced in Response to Cortical Ischemia

Background: Acute hypoxic/ischemic insults to the forebrain, often resulting in significant cellular loss of the cortical parenchyma, are a major cause of debilitating injury in the industrialized world. A clearer understanding of the pro-death/ pro-survival signaling pathways and their downstream targets is critical to the development of therapeutic interventions to mitigate permanent neurological damage. Methodology/Principal Findings: We demonstrate here that the transcriptional repressor ZEB1, thought to be involved in regulating the timing and spatial boundaries of basic-Helix-Loop-Helix transactivator-mediated neurogenic determination/ differentiation programs, functions to link a pro-survival transcriptional cascade rapidly induced in cortical neurons in response to experimentally induced ischemia. Employing histological, tissue culture, and molecular biological read-outs, we show that this novel pro-survival response, initiated through the rapid induction of p63, is mediated ultimately by the transcriptional repression of a pro-apoptotic isoform of p73 by ZEB1. We show further that this phylogenetically conserved pathway is induced as well in the human cortex subjected to episodes of clinically relevant stroke. Conclusions/Significance: The data presented here provide the first evidence that ZEB1 induction is part of a protective response by neurons to ischemia. The stroke-induced increase in ZEB1 mRNA and protein levels in cortical neurons is both developmentally and phylogenetically conserved and may therefore be part of a fundamental cellular response to thi

The Proteolipid Protein Promoter Drives Expression outside of the Oligodendrocyte Lineage during Embryonic and Early Postnatal Development

The proteolipid protein (Plp) gene promoter is responsible for driving expression of one of the major components of myelin – PLP and its splice variant DM-20. Both products are classically thought to express predominantly in oligodendrocytes. However, accumulating evidence suggests Plp expression is more widespread than previously thought. In an attempt to create a mouse model for inducing oligodendrocyte-specific gene deletions, we have generated transgenic mice expressing a Cre recombinase cDNA under control of the mouse Plp promoter. We demonstrate Plp promoter driven Cre expression is restricted predominantly to mature oligodendrocytes of the central nervous system (CNS) at postnatal day 28. However, crosses into the Rosa26LacZ and mT/mG reporter mouse lines reveal robust and widespread Cre activity in neuronal tissues at E15.5 and E10.5 that is not strictly oligodendrocyte lineage specific. By P28, all CNS tissues examined displayed high levels of reporter gene expression well outside of defined white matter zones. Importantly, our study reinforces the emerging idea that Plp promoter activity is not restricted to the myelinating cell lineage, but rather, has widespread activity both during embryonic and early postnatal development in the CNS. Specificity of the promoter to the oligodendrocyte cell lineage, as shown through the use of a tamoxifen inducible Plp-CreERt line, occurs only at later postnatal stages. Understanding the temporal shift in Plp driven expression is of consequence when designing experimental models to study oligodendrocyte biology